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This chapter challenges the very idea that a great divide separates “public” from “conventional” historians. It cites institutional factors for the gaps that do exist but says that the Organization of American Historians “has maintained an ongoing (if sometimes comparatively marginal) interest in public history issues over its entire hundred year history.” It urges historians to focus on the “common ground” that unites them “because the crisis that faces the discipline is shared by all of us.” The crisis is a widespread neglect of history, based upon doubts about the value of historical study.

This chapter challenges the very idea that a great divide separates “public” from “conventional” historians. It cites institutional factors for the gaps that do exist but says that the Organization of American Historians “has maintained an ongoing (if sometimes comparatively marginal) interest in public history issues over its entire hundred year history.” It urges historians to focus on the “common ground” that unites them “because the crisis that faces the discipline is shared by all of us.” The crisis is a widespread neglect of history, based upon doubts about the value of historical study.